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We admit, then, a Necessity in all that is brought about by
this compromise between evil and accidental circumstance: what
room was there for anything else than the thing that is? Given
all the causes, all must happen beyond aye or nay- that is, all
the external and whatever may be due to the sidereal circuit-
therefore when the Soul has been modified by outer forces and
acts under that pressure so that what it does is no more than an
unreflecting acceptance of stimulus, neither the act nor the
state can be described as voluntary: so, too, when even from
within itself, it falls at times below its best and ignores the
true, the highest, laws of action.
But when our Soul holds to its Reason-Principle, to the guide,
pure and detached and native to itself, only then can we speak of
personal operation, of voluntary act. Things so done may truly be
described as our doing, for they have no other source; they are
the issue of the unmingled Soul, a Principle that is a First, a
leader, a sovereign not subject to the errors of ignorance, not
to be overthrown by the tyranny of the desires which, where they
can break in, drive and drag, so as to allow of no act of ours,
but mere answer to stimulus.
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